Copperplate for plate 28 from: Diverses suites de figures, chevaux et paysages dessinées et gravées par le Clerc pour l'instruction de M. le Duc de Bourgogne
inscribed ‘193’ (scratched in the copperplate, verso)
copperplate
7.4 x 15.8 cm
cf. Préaud 1164.28 [1]
Sold together with two impressions (one 19th-century and one 20th-century) of the print

Sébastien Leclerc was one of the most prolific print-makers of his time, producing over 3000 engravings during his long career. He began his career as a printmaker aged seventeen and became a member of the ‘Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture’ in 1672 and from 1693 he was ‘graveur du roi’ to king Louis XIV.
Leclerc produced many series of prints, and the present copperplate is for one of the plates of such a series titled 'Diverses suites de figures, chevaux et paysages dessinées et gravées par le Clerc pour l'instruction de M. le Duc de Bourgogne'. The ‘Duc de Bourgogne’ to which this series is dedicated was Louis de France (1682-1712), a grandson of Louis XIV, who died before he could enter the throne. The engravings from the series show compositions with elegantly dressed figures and horses as well as landscapes and genre scenes.

[1] M. Préaud, 'Inventaire du fonds français. Graveurs du XVIIe siècle. Tome 8. Sébastien Leclerc', Paris, 1980, pp. 312-313.